;)
The Commentariat -- December 7, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Charlie Savage & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday said he intended to nominate William P. Barr, who served as attorney general during the first Bush administration..., to return as head of the Justice Department.... Mr. Trump also announced that Heather Nauert, the chief State Department spokeswoman, is his pick to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, replacing Nikki R. Haley.... In another personnel move, John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his post in the next few days, ending a tumultuous 16-month tenure still among the longest for a senior aide to Mr. Trump, two people with direct knowledge of the developments said Friday." See more on Barr in today's links. ...
... Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "John Kelly is expected to resign as White House chief of staff in the coming days, two sources familiar with the situation unfolding in the West Wing tell CNN.... Kelly and ... Donald Trump have reached a stalemate in their relationship and it is no longer seen as tenable by either party. Though Trump asked Kelly over the summer to stay on as chief of staff for two more years, the two have stopped speaking in recent days. Trump is actively discussing a replacement plan, though a person involved in the process said nothing is final right now and ultimately nothing is final until Trump announces it. Potential replacements include Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, who is still seen as a leading contender."
When you talk about Germany, we have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government. -- Heather Nauert, June 5, 2018 ...
... Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "The United Nations came into existence to vanquish Germany, as 26 nations jointly pledged in 1942 not to surrender to 'savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world.' Three-quarters of a century later, the woman who would soon become President Trump's pick to represent the United States at the United Nations cited the D-Day landings -- a cornerstone of this unwavering Allied pledge and the basis of the Nazi defeat on the Western Front -- to showcase the strength of German-American relations." Read on. ...
... Do read Akhilleus's commentary in today's thread on Nauert.
John Wagner & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Friday that his lawyers are preparing a 'major Counter Report' in response to expected findings from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.... Trump confirmed the plan in a spate of angry morning tweets in which also took fresh aim at Mueller and his legal team, accusing them of conflicts of interest and overzealous prosecutions that have 'wrongly destroyed people's lives.' 'We will be doing a major Counter Report to the Mueller Report,' Trump said. 'This should never again be allowed to happen to a future President of the United States!'... 'It has been incorrectly reported that Rudy Giuliani and others will not be doing a counter to the Mueller Report. That is Fake News. Already 87 pages done, but obviously cannot complete until we see the final Witch Hunt Report.'... The president's confirmation of the plan appears to have been spurred by reports that ... Rudolph W. Giuliani, and others were doing little to prepare to rebut Mueller, who is also looking at whether Trump has obstructed justice. Trump said 87 pages had already been written, adding, 'obviously cannot complete until we the see the final Witch Hunt report.'" See also related reports linked below. ...
... Evan Perez & Dana Bash of CNN: "White House chief of staff John Kelly was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team in recent months, three people with knowledge of the matter told CNN. Kelly responded to a narrow set of questions from special counsel investigators after White House lawyers initially objected to Mueller's request to do the interview earlier this summer, the sources said.... The Mueller questions to Kelly centered on a narrow set of issues in the investigation of potential obstruction of justice, chiefly Kelly's recollection of an episode that took place after new reporting emerged about how the President had tried to fire Mueller."
Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Nearly nine months after his unceremonious firing by tweet, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is breaking his silence on his time in the Trump administration, venting that he had to repeatedly tell ... Donald Trump that what he wanted to do would violate the law. The former ExxonMobil CEO appeared at a fundraiser in Houston on Thursday evening where he sat for a conversation with CBS reporter Bob Schieffer and outlined how Trump had a 'starkly different' style from Tillerson, who said the two also did not share a 'common value system.'... The two continued to clash when Trump would test the limits of his executive power and would grow frustrated when Tillerson would inform him that he didn't have unilateral authority to do something." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Tillerson himself had no government experience prior to being named secretary of state, so in many cases, he would not have known what the limits of the law were, either. But his remarks illustrate the difference between an intelligent person & a "moron": Tillerson took the trouble to find out what he didn't know. Trump not only didn't bother to ask; he didn't want to know the answer. He just wanted to do whatever hairbrained idea he had, the law or treaties be damned. ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "'What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation,' Tillerson said, was 'to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, "This is what I believe."'"
Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a Washington Post op-ed lays down his marker: "Now that Democrats will soon control one branch of Congress, President Trump is again signaling that infrastructure could be an area of compromise. We agree, but if the president wanted to earn Democratic support in the Senate, any infrastructure bill would have to include policies and funding that help transition our country to a clean-energy economy and mitigate the risks the United States already faces from climate change." ...
... Eric Levitz: "Rather than trying to meet the president halfway (as has been his wont), the Senate Minority Leader has made Trump an offer he can't accept.... This is a sound approach on (at least) three levels. First, it allows Democrats to obstruct a popular policy idea [Trump's fake "infrastructure" pledge] -- by baiting Republicans into obstructing an even more popular one. Second, it sends a signal to the party's growing left flank and activist base that the Democratic leadership welcomes the former's ideas and energy. Finally, it puts 'green jobs' near the top of the next Democratic government's agenda."
*****
I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers. I was asked a series of questions. I've answered them very easily, very easily. -- Donald Trump, November 16, on responding to the special counsel's written questions
Answering those questions was a nightmare. It took him about three weeks to do what would normally take two days. -- Rudy Giuliani, to Elaina Plott of the Atlantic, published December 6 ...
... ** The Big Dog Ate Rudy's Homework. Elaina Plott of the Atlantic: "Nobody knows how the White House plans to respond to the Mueller report -- including the people who work at the White House.... According to a half-dozen current and former White House officials, the administration has no plans in place for responding to the special counsel's findings -- save for expecting a Twitter spree.... [Rudy] Giuliani said it's been difficult in the past few months to even consider drafting response plans, or devote time to the 'counter-report' he claimed they were working on this summer.... Giuliani initially pushed back on the prediction that Trump would take center stage after the report drops. 'I don't think following his lead is the right thing. He's the client,' he told me. 'The more controlled a person is, the more intelligent they are, the more they can make the decision. But he's just like every other client. He.s not more ... you know, controlled than any other client. In fact, he.s a little less.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Thoroughly Postmodern Trumpy. Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice has a pretty funny take on Plott's report. It's titled, "What could possibly go wrong?" Mrs. McC: As long as you don't think about the damage these jamokes are doing, they really are a running sit-com. Larry David has said otherwise, but I can't get over the idea that the the "Seinfeld" character Kramer is based on Trump & George Costanza is Rudy, but more intelligent, reasonable & charming. In any event, the "Trump Show" is definitely a show about nothing. ...
... Oh Crap. Chait and I, Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, went with very similar headlines ("The Dog Ate My Counter-Report": "Today's Atlantic reports on the state of the administration's overall response to Mueller, which is as shambolic as one might expect. The numerous difficulties include the fact that nobody is willing to face up to the actual guilt of everybody involved ('There have also been few frank conversations within the White House about the potential costs of Mueller's findings, which could include impeachment of the president or the incrimination of his inner circle') as well as the president's characteristic inability to follow any plan at all."
Kristen Welker of NBC News: "The president's lawyers have resumed discussions with the office of special counsel Robert Mueller in recent days, the first time that's been acknowledged since ... Donald Trump submitted written responses to questions regarding the possibility of collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News on Thursday.... The sources would not characterize the nature of the discussions: whether Mueller is pressing for an in-person interview, or how close the process is to wrapping up."
Jeremy North, et al., of CNN: "... Robert Mueller's team could reveal tantalizing new details in its investigation into possible Russian collusion on Friday thanks to a pair of court filing deadlines involving ... Paul Manafort and former lawyer Michael Cohen."
Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "When the time comes, the witnesses against Trump won't be members of the special counsel's office. The witnesses will be people like former White House counsel Don McGahn and firsthand witnesses like Rick Gates and Michael Flynn. This will make it a lot more difficult for the White House to discredit the factual case.... The Mueller revelations won't be rebutted by a clever set of counterpoints that help win a 24-hour news cycle. The revelations will provide the context for hearings and a guide to calling witnesses.... The idea many have is that the Republicans will have little trouble brushing all of this off, but I don't see that as a sustainable position for them. What brought Nixon down was the testimony of his own people, and that's what ultimately will bring Trump down, too."
A "Trump Show" Spin-off? Stephanie Kirchgaessner & Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Robert Mueller is allegedly examining a Trump campaign adviser's appearances on the Kremlin-controlled broadcaster RT, offering new hints about the investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump's associates. Mueller's investigators have asked Ted Malloch, the London-based American academic who is also close to Nigel Farage, about his frequent appearances on RT, which US intelligence authorities have called Russia's principal propaganda arm. The special counsel's alleged focus on RT is important because the Russian news channel also has a close relationship with the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who in 2016 published tens of thousands of emails stolen from senior Democrats by Russian intelligence operatives."
John Reed of Slate: "One of the biggest developments of the past week, [was] Robert Mueller's Wednesday sentencing memo for former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Full of redactions, the filing is another reminder that the investigation is looking into something much bigger and far-reaching than it may sometimes seem.... This is a giant counterintelligence case involving possible election-law violations, money laundering, and who knows what other criminal behaviors.... That Flynn is helping with not only Mueller's immediate probe into team Trump's interactions with Russians during the campaign but also the two other investigations indicates that the collusion question is tied to something broader." --s
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "... Donald Trump is blaming special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe for his relatively low approval ratings....'Without the phony Russia Witch Hunt, and with all that we have accomplished in the last almost two years (Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judge's, Military, Vets, etc.) my approval rating would be at 75% rather than the 50% just reported by Rasmussen,' Trump tweeted on Thursday. 'It's called Presidential Harassment!'... The president's average approval rating is 43.3 percent, according to Real Clear Politics." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... Trump, who has the lowest average approval rating (39 percent, to date) of any president since Gallup started this kind of polling in 1938, thinks he'd be as popular as JFK or Ike (the two postwar presidents with the highest average approval ratings) if it weren't for Mueller's 'harassment.' It says a lot that the president cites tax cuts that weren't particularly popular and judicial appointments that half the country hated as among the reasons his numbers should be crazy high." Mrs. McC: Kilgore suggests that Trump's fantastical assertion of unrealized popularity caused by someone else's supposed malfeasance could be a harbinger of a refusal to accept defeat in 2020.
Yo, Bob Mueller. Mike Spies of Mother Jones: "... the NRA and the Trump campaign employed the same operation -- at times, the exact same people -- to craft and execute their advertising strategies for the 2016 presidential election. [An] ... investigation [by Mother Jones & The Trace] ... found multiple instances in which [a conservative consulting firm called] National Media, through its affiliates Red Eagle and AMAG, executed ad buys for Trump and the NRA that seemed coordinated to enhance each other. Individuals working for National Media or its affiliated companies either signed or were named in FCC documents, demonstrating that they had knowledge of both the NRA and the Trump campaign's advertising plans. Experts say the arrangement appears to violate campaign finance laws.... Experts say the apparent coordination is the most glaring they've ever seen.... The FEC has the authority to launch investigations and seek civil penalties, but it's unlikely that the NRA or the Trump campaign will face any official action.... The Department of Justice is also authorized to launch investigations, but prosecutions under the Federal Election Campaign Act are uncommon."
Pamela Brown & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "In the hectic eight days after ... Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and top FBI officials viewed Trump as a leader who needed to be reined in, according to two sources describing the sentiment at the time. They discussed a range of options, including the idea of Rosenstein wearing a wire while speaking with Trump, which Rosenstein later denied. Ultimately, then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe took the extraordinary step of opening an obstruction of justice investigation even before special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed, the sources said. The obstruction probe was an idea the FBI had previously considered, but it didn't start until after Comey was fired. The justification went beyond Trump's firing of Comey, according to the sources, and also included the President's conversation with Comey in the Oval Office asking him to drop the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn."
Apparently Donald Trump is fine with having "dangerous, criminal" "illegal immigrants" from Central America make his bed & clean his toilet. My hypocrisy meter done broke:
We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money. We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation. -- Victorina Morales, Donald Trump's housekeeper at his residence at the Trump golf club in Bedminster ...
... Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "During more than five years as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Victorina Morales has made Donald J. Trump’s bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies. When he visited as president, she was directed to wear a pin in the shape of the American flag adorned with a Secret Service logo. Because of the 'outstanding' support she has provided during Mr. Trump's visits, Ms. Morales [-- who is from rural Guatemala --] in July was given a certificate from the White House Communications Agency inscribed with her name. Quite an achievement for an undocumented immigrant housekeeper.... She said she was not the only worker at the club who was in the country illegally.... Throughout [Trump's] campaign and his administration, Ms. Morales, 45, has been reporting for work at Mr. Trump's golf course in Bedminster, where she is still on the payroll. An employee of the golf course drives her and a group of others to work every day, she says, because it is known that they cannot legally obtain driver's licenses.... Ms. Morales said she has been hurt by Mr. Trump's public comments since he became president, including equating Latin American immigrants with violent criminals." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Yo, Bob Mueller. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "... Donald Trump has long employed undocumented immigrants at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a New York Times report. This arrangement may run afoul of federal law.... Parts of the Times report allege that higher-ups at Bedminster were absolutely aware of their employees' undocumented status. Morales explicitly claims that some of those higher-ups conspired to help certain employees obtain forged immigration and work documentation -- including herself."
John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "With Trump, virtually anything that happens tends to get dismissed as just another blow-up or snafu that will be succeeded in rapid order by something else. But in [his latest opaque China dealings, going from 'Tariff Man' to 'everything's going smoothly' in less than 24 hours] it is more than the usual chaos. Trump's volte-face reflected the fact that the economic environment he is operating in has changed, leaving him boxed in.... For a long time -- longer than many financial commentators anticipated -- Trump was able to have it both ways.... Trump breathed fire at the Chinese. He also constantly boasted about the rising market and predicted that it would continue.... Instead, the psychology of the market has shifted dramatically, leaving Trump in a bind.... As the long party on Wall Street comes to an end, investors are getting very nervous, and they are taking what Trump says more seriously. This is a much more awkward world for him to navigate. If he is genuinely determined to force the Chinese to make real changes, he had better get used to it." --s
Mark Landler, et al., of the New York Times: "At dinner with China’s president, Xi Jinping, on Saturday night in Buenos Aires, President Trump celebrated their 'special' relationship and all but predicted they would emerge with a truce in the trade war between the United States and China. Seven thousand miles away, unbeknown to both leaders, Canadian police acting at the request of the United States were in the process of detaining Meng Wanzhou, a top executive of one of China's flagship technology firms, as she changed planes in Vancouver.... The timing of the arrest, some experts said, could feed the suspicion of Chinese officials that nationalist factions in the Trump administration were trying to sabotage the trade deal.... The fact that Mr. Trump went into the meeting without knowing about the arrest raised questions about whether the president was properly briefed before a sensitive meeting with a foreign leader. While the Justice Department did brief the White House about the impending arrest, Mr. Trump was not told about it." ...
... Charles Arthur of the Guardian: "The arrest in Canada of the chief financial officer of the Chinese mobile network and handset tech firm Huawei marks a new stage in a technological cold war between western spy agencies and Beijing. This development could be catastrophic for Huawei: according to reports, the US suspects it broke sanctions by selling telecoms equipment to Iran. If that is proven, the response could exclude Huawei from many of the world's most valuable markets.... Huawei has been the world's largest telecoms network equipment company since 2015.... But the company has for years struggled against suspicions that it has bowed to pressure from the Chinese government to tap or disrupt telecoms systems in foreign countries.... Meng Wanzhou's arrest on a federal warrant in Canada is a dramatic escalation." --s
Déjà vu All Over Again. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump insisted when he made Matthew G. Whitaker his acting attorney general that he wasn't familiar with Whitaker's past commentary critical of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's probe. But now it might be happening again. Former attorney general William Barr has emerged as Trump's top pick to be the nominee for the full-time AG job, The Washington Post is reporting. Picking former president George H.W. Bush's AG would seem a pretty safe and confirmable pick, on its surface. But much like Whitaker, Barr's past commentary has played down the severity of the allegations against Trump -- on both the collusion and obstruction-of-justice fronts -- and he has also suggested the Clintons should be in more trouble.... In November 2017, Barr told the New York Times that there was actually more basis to investigate Hillary Clinton for the Uranium One deal than there is to investigate Trump for potential collusion with Russia.... In a Washington Post op-ed, Barr said Trump not only did nothing wrong [in firing Jim Comey], but that he actually 'made the right call.'... when Bush in 1992 decided to pardon several figures in the Iran-contra scandal, he took the legs out from beneath the independent prosecutor investigating the matter. And one of the people Bush consulted was Barr. At the time, the prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, called it 'a sort of Saturday night massacre.'..." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "At a time when there is strong bipartisan support in the Senate for criminal-justice reform, it's worth noting that as Bush's AG, [William Barr] was an outspoken advocate for expanded incarceration as a weapon in that era's fight against crime and drugs[.]"
Eliana Johnson, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump has tapped State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday night.... Trump chose the former Fox News anchor to replace Nikki Haley, who is leaving her post at the end of the month.... If officially nominated, [Nauert] will have prevailed over a number of candidates with more foreign policy credentials." ...
... Elise Labott of CNN: "The former Fox News host's precipitous rise since arriving at the State Department in 2017 sets the stage for a potentially tough Senate confirmation hearing, where Democrats will likely grill Nauert on her qualifications for the position.... [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo has told aides he wants the UN position downgraded from the Cabinet-level job Haley had insisted on.... National security adviser John Bolton has been said to want the role downgraded as well.... The shift means Nauert would wield less clout than her predecessor, both at the UN and within the administration...." ...
... Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday rejected a resolution proposed by the United States to condemn the Islamic militant group Hamas for violence against Israel. The rejection was a blow to the American ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, who had positioned the measure as a capstone of her tenure."
Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "The Senate narrowly confirmed Kathy Kraninger for a five-year term as the head of the CFPB, putting her in charge of an Obama-era agency that became a lightning rod for Republican attacks over its aggressive enforcement. Kraninger, nominated by ... Donald Trump in June, was approved on a party-line 50-49 vote.... CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney ... muffled the agency ... during his tumultuous year-long tenure -- freezing data collection for six months, dramatically reining in enforcement actions, reorganizing the student loan and fair lending offices, and installing political appointees to run the consumer bureau's day- to-day operations.... Republicans quickly lined up behind Kraninger on the endorsement of Mulvaney — her boss at OMB -- after she was nominated. Mulvaney's supporters and critics alike see the appointment of one of his lieutenants as a way to ensure he keeps his hand in CFPB operations, especially after Kraninger said she 'cannot identify any actions that [Mulvaney] has taken with which I disagree.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Renae Merle of the Washington Post: "Kraninger, currently the associate director of general government at the Office of Management Budget, has no experience in consumer finance but now will become one of the country's most powerful banking regulators.... Without a deep understanding of the history and complexity of consumer finance, Kraninger could become a puppet for influential financial groups, Democrats and consumer groups who oppose her nomination have argued. Democrats have also questioned whether while working in the White House's budget office Kraninger helped craft the administration's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy that separated families of undocumented immigrants. Kraninger told lawmakers in July that she had played no role in 'setting the policy' but repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether she had supported or helped implement it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "The Senate voted Thursday, in a party-line vote, to approve President Donald Trump's nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), despite video evidence that the nominee strongly favors fossil fuels over renewable energy and rejects the overwhelming scientific evidence behind human-caused climate change. The nominee, Bernard McNamee, will be replacing former Commissioner Robert Powelson, who left the agency in August to lead a water company trade group. Powelson, a Republican appointee, led the charge against the president's plan to prop up financially struggling coal and nuclear plants." --s
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Thursday detailed its plan to open nine million acres to drilling and mining by stripping away protections for the sage grouse, an imperiled ground-nesting bird that oil companies have long considered an obstacle to some of the richest deposits in the American West.In one stroke, the action would open more land to drilling than any other step the administration has taken, environmental policy experts said. It drew immediate criticism from environmentalists...."
Mark Hand: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposal on Thursday that will weaken protections against greenhouse gas emissions from new electric power plants. The proposed rule is the latest in a long list of Trump administration policy initiatives meant to prop up the struggling coal industry.... When asked how the proposed rule for new coal-fired power plants helps protect human heath and the environment, [EPA Administrator Andrew] Wheeler inaccurately argued that coal is the cheapest form of electricity." --s ...
... Adam Raymond of New York: "Acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, signed a proposal Thursday to roll back a 2015 regulation limiting the amount of carbon dioxide new coal-fired power plants could emit.The change is being welcomed by the coal industry, but it's unlikely to result in the construction of any new plants. Natural gas and renewables are too cheap, and the last new coal-fired power plant to come online in the U.S. cost an eye-popping $1.8 billion. Fact is, the energy sector is moving away from coal altogether...."
Rachel Bade & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Congress steered clear of a shutdown Thursday, but the parties are no closer to resolving the battle over ... Donald Trump's wall as Democratic leaders prepare to meet with Trump next week. Democrats are urging Republicans to sidestep a Christmastime fight over Trump's wall and simply extend current border security funding -- a proposal the GOP is already panning. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters Wednesday that she would not support Trump's border wall even if he offered up a solution to shield from deportation the thousands of young immigrants brought here as children known as Dreamers. Lawmakers, she argued, should simply punt on wall funding since both sides are in sharp disagreement." (Also linked yesterday.)
Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) is coming under criticism for falsely claiming in an interview that billionaire philanthropist George Soros, known for his funding of liberal and pro-democracy groups, 'helped take the property' owned by fellow Jews.... 'George Soros is supposed to be Jewish, but you wouldn't know it from the damage he’s inflicted on Israel, and the fact that he turned on fellow Jews and helped take the property that they owned...' [Gohmert said].... Gohmert on Thursday was referencing a false claim that Soros helped the Nazis confiscate property from Jews during World War II.... On Thursday afternoon, Gohmert doubled down on his remarks, which he argued were 'not anti-Semitic' but rather 'pro-Jewish.'" Gohmert went on to make more false statements about Soros.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The email controversy that dogged Hillary Clinton through much of the 2016 presidential race could well be kicking around through the 2020 contest after a federal judge ordered additional fact-finding into whether Clinton's use of the private email system was a deliberate effort to thwart the Freedom of Information Act. In a scathing opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said that despite FBI, inspector general and congressional investigations into Clinton's use of a private account for all her email traffic during her four years as secretary of state, the conservative group Judicial Watch should be permitted to demand documents and additional testimony about the practice. Lamberth, who has clashed with Clinton and her aides in cases dating back to her husband's administration, was unsparing in his assessment of the former secretary's actions. He blasted Clinton's email practices as 'one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not to put to fine a point on it, but Lamberth is a cranky, partisan hack.
Rachel Abrams & John Koblin of the New York Times: "The success has allowed '60 Minutes' to operate independently from the larger [CBS] network news division to which it belongs. But that independence came at a cost: The show proved unable to prevent inappropriate conduct by some of its top executives, according to lawyers hired by the CBS Corporation board of directors to investigate the workplace culture of the program.... The executive producer of '60 Minutes,' Jeff Fager, was fired in September after he threatened a CBS News reporter looking into allegations about his behavior. The investigators wrote that the firing was justified, adding that Mr. Fager had 'engaged in certain acts of sexual misconduct' with colleagues and failed to stop misbehavior by others.They also said the misdeeds during Mr. Fager's run as executive producer ... were less severe than under his powerful predecessor, Don Hewitt, who died in 2009.... Investigators revealed that CBS continues to pay out a settlement to a woman who claimed that Mr. Hewitt sexually assaulted her on repeated occasions and destroyed her career. The settlement, reached in the 1990s, has been amended multiple times, including this year. In total, CBS has agreed to pay the former employee more than $5 million."
Nicole Chavez of CNN (11:12 pm Thursday: "CNN's New York offices and studios have been evacuated due to a phoned bomb threat, the company said. Several fire alarm bells rang inside CNN's New York newsroom, signaling an evacuation shortly after 10:30 p.m.Staffers evacuated the building and Don Lemon's 'CNN Tonight' was taken off the air.In the meantime, the network has gone to taped programming."
Election 2018
California. Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: "On Thursday afternoon, a month after the midterm elections, Republican Rep. David Valadao finally conceded in his race against Democrat TJ Cox. With California's 21st congressional district going blue, the Democrats have officially picked up 40 seats in this midterm cycle and won seven Republican-held seats in California -- all of which voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election."
Missouri. Matt Shuham of TPM: "Missouri's Republican secretary of state has launched an investigation of its outgoing attorney general and Sen.-Elect Josh Hawley (R-MO), over accusations that Hawley misused public funds in order to help his political career.... Last month, ADLF filed a complaint asking for an investigation following a report that Hawley had 'used public funds as Attorney General to support his candidacy for U.S. Senate.'... Hawley defeated incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in November." --s
North Carolina. Eric Bradner of CNN: "Democrat Dan McCready is withdrawing his concession in a North Carolina congressional race where investigators are probing allegations of election fraud. McCready got 905 fewer votes than Republican Mark Harris in the 9th District race. But the state elections board has refused to certify the results as it investigates potential misconduct with absentee ballots, making it the last undecided House contest in the country. The board could ultimately order another election." ...
... Eric Bradner, et al., of CNN: "A CNN review of absentee ballot envelopes has found irregularities with witness signatures in a second North Carolina county. Dozens of absentee ballots were witnessed by four people in Robeson County, which is adjacent to Bladen County -- the place investigations by the state elections board and state and local prosecutors had been focused. The people who witnessed multiple ballots are loosely connected to Leslie McCrae Dowless, the political operative who is being investigated for alleged election fraud."
... Amy Gardner & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "When GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger lost his primary by a narrow margin in May, he suspected something was amiss.... Pittenger's concern stemmed from the vote tallies in rural Bladen County, where his challenger, a pastor from the Charlotte suburbs named Mark Harris, had won 437 absentee mail-in votes. Pittenger, a three-term incumbent, had received just 17.... Aides to Pittenger told the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party and a regional political director for the National Republican Congressional Committee that they believed fraud had occurred.... GOP officials did little to scrutinize the results, instead turning their attention to Harris's general-election campaign.... [The aides'] accounts provide the first indication that state and national Republican officials received early warnings about voting irregularities in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, now the subject of multiple criminal probes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Wonders Never Cease. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Kris Kobach, an ally of President Trump who served on a voter integrity panel, expressed worry Thursday that Republican fraud might have tainted a North Carolina/span> congressional election, becoming one of the most prominent members of the GOP to publicly express alarm about the race. 'Based on what I have read, I am very concerned that voter fraud did occur,' Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post. He said it was unclear whether the alleged wrongdoing was broad enough to change the outcome of the election. Kobach's comments contrasted with many other Republican elected officials, including Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who have opted not to comment on the allegations roiling North Carolina's 9th Congressional District. The posture of Trump and other top Republicans for much of this week marked a departure from the recently concluded Florida recount, in which the president and fellow Republicans leveled unsubstantiated claims about Democratic malfeasance. Throughout his presidency, Trump has not been shy about alleging fraud in elections. Without presenting evidence, he told lawmakers last year that between 3 million and 5 million illegal ballots caused him to lose the popular vote. He also formed a now-defunct commission to probe alleged voter fraud, with Vice President Pence as chairman and Kobach as vice chairman." ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "... the North Carolina GOP has openly declared that it does not actually care about the integrity of elections, only about insulating its power from the Tar Heel State's increasingly Democratic electorate. The party conveyed this message by calling on North Carolina's board of elections to certify the results of the congressional race in the state's Ninth District -- despite the fact that an ongoing investigation into alleged election fraud in that race has already produced overwhelming evidence of impropriety.... The party is actually telling its donors that, by insisting on a full investigation of [the] alleged acts of fraud (including those committed against a sitting Republican congressman in a GOP primary), the Democrats are effectively 'stealing the congressional race from [Republican] Mark Harris.'... Thus, it seems fair to say that the North Carolina GOP has now confessed that all its rhetoric about voter fraud was delivered in bad faith." Read on. Levitz lays into major media -- especially the New York Times -- for failing to explain or even note the anti-democratic nature of the GOP power grabs in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan &, well, everywhere.
Presidential Election 2020
Charles Pierce: "... the 2020 presidential election is already showing signs of encroaching idiocy. It is not a good sign that the elite political press already is demonstrating that it has learned absolutely, 100 percent jack-squat from its demonstrable malpractice in 2016. This should be no surprise. The elite political press learned nothing from its previous exercises in demonstrable malpractice. Of course, this time around, there likely will not be a Clinton to kick around, so there will have to be some adjustments in the old playbook." Pierce elaborates. Mrs. McC: And he is as impressed as I was with that stupid NYT story about Elizabeth Warren's DNA.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Louisa Lim & Julia Bergin of the Guardian: "For decades, Beijing's approach to shaping its image has been defensive, reactive and largely aimed at a domestic audience. The most visible manifestation of these efforts was the literal disappearance of content inside China.... Beijing's crude tools were domestic censorship, official complaints to news organisations' headquarters and expelling correspondents from China. But over the past decade or so, China has rolled out a more sophisticated and assertive strategy, which is increasingly aimed at international audiences.... Since 2003, when revisions were made to an official document outlining the political goals of the People's Liberation Army, so-called 'media warfare' has been an explicit part of Beijing's military strategy." A long read. --s
News Lede
Bloomberg: "U.S. jobs and wages rose by less than forecast in November while the unemployment rate held at the lowest in almost five decades, indicating some moderation in a still-healthy labor market."
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